mental link: day 34

[erbier]

[ It is actually quite late when Ilde's soft voice moves through the hosts, her scent of smoke and earth. She is at a club somewhere deep in the city, dazzled by noise and light, something you are free to establish if you look for it. ]

( It has been suggested to me by a hacker named Y that I throw a concert to lure our bombers out again. )

[ This part is forthright, a statement of fact with no value attachment to it. ]

( I believe she is questioning who I really am. If I refuse this idea, I may encourage that. )

[ This may not be strictly true, but it is how Ilde has perceived their conversation. ]

( She seems to know something, but is it worth losing my guise? If not, how am I to refuse this suggestion and maintain it. I do not know if she is a part of the group who contacted us before. She may already know I am false and this is all a game. )


OOC: link & all threadjacking here very much encouraged!

Comments

[erbier]

[ Of course the pleasure is there, she knows about him. The awareness is a mixture of sharpness and sweetness, a ribbon of satin that can be soft to the touch or tight at the throat. Both are useful, and so at least her attention is not feigned. She knows exactly how she became this way and cannot entirely regret it, she knows the value of death and adulation. They make a hypnotic perfume... ]

That is our goal, yes. [ She agrees, there is no rebuke in her tone, merely an airy reminder. ] I am doing my best to tread carefully. That is why I reached out tonight.

[ It isn't in her usual habit to look to anyone, there had never been anyone to look to, but now there is the Hive, the Nest, the Brood. All whispering, all with skills and advice... She cannot rely on them too heavily, there is a need to self-actualization, but there is also plenty enough to be learned when she is ignorant. ]

[nirsighted]

[He's nodding in agreement, a faint bobbing of the head as his fingers turn in his lap: picking absently at his cuticles, scraping the edge of his thumbnail along the lines of his knuckles. It's an unconscious, uneasy compulsion like scuffing a callus over softer skin.]

That makes sense. [After a second, he turns his hand over - across his knee and to her, palm upturned and fingers soft.] I can show you what I know. It isn't a lot, but it's something.

[erbier]

[ She lays her hand in his without hesitation. She enjoys these moments with others. Mind working together, to learn. To some the intimacy was overwhelming, but Ilde was comfortable in her disassociation in that regard. She had an icy center that she did not much worry about being touched against her will. It lets her spend more time exploring the depths of this connection, this telepathy. ]

Thank you, for sharing.

[ Not said merely to appease him, she loves to learn. Hungers to understand better than she does. ]

[nirsighted]

Sure. [For such a twitchy person, his hand is steady under hers: skin rough with calluses, finger tips and knuckles and the meat of his palm mottled by incidental dark scars.] Happy to.

[There's the sensation that he means it. It expands - balloons. Becomes a sphere and grows to surround them until they are two people in a diving bell and Concordia is the ocean, neon deep sea life glittering in the dark. It's safe here. Quiet. They can observe all the massive shapes moving through the darkness of the city without worrying about whether one will come around to eat them where they float.

Nirad's ever-present mental buzz has elongated, stretching out of a disjointed hum and into individual pieces: seeing a glint of color and then swimming closer to realize it's a series of scales reflecting light. On one of them: Nirad, or a boy who looks exactly like him. Another: a small boat in a dark sea. Another: Aoba, breathing short and sharp. Another: a thousand pieces of hardware, taken apart then put together again like tying a knot (he knows so many knots - do you want to know those too?; a flash of Angel's pale hands superimposed across his own; he ties a knot and--)

Right. Computers. Focus.]